Abilities do not appear in game

Hey, I was messing around with the editor the other night and noticed how powerful it can be, so I decided to create an RPG Style map. I created a few heros and some custom ultimates via the object editor. I made sure each hero had the ability in his/her list. I obviously renamed the abilities as well. In the game though, the ability comes up as if I had not edited it at all. Lets say I changed Locust Swarm to "Death Swarm" or something, and changed the stats for it. In the game it would still be Locust swarm and have the original stats. Any ideas?

The only thing that I can think of offhand is to ask if you're using a custom ability, or if you edited the original. If you created a custom ability based off of another spell, and gave it to a unit that already had the original spell, then he would have two spells with the same root, which is a problem.
If a unit has two spells with the same root ability, the spells and icons will overlap (or so I've heard), which could be your problem.
That's sort of a long shot, though. I doubt this is your problem, but I couldn't let you go without something.

What if you were to describe to us the exact processes you used to edit the ability and add it to the hero?

Does the hero have both Locust Swarm AND Death Swarm? Because if so, Locust Swarm is most likely overlapping it. You can't have 2 spells based off of the same ability on the same hero.

No, they do not have the root spells on them. I created the new spells by copying the old ones and changing them. I did not make the new spells from scratch. Should I be doing that instead?

You say you renamed the ability, did you also remember to remake and redo all the tooltips? If you didn't then it would still "Tool Tip" (pop up text box) the old ability name while still functioning as the new ability.